


Beyond These Castle Walls

by kyanve



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyanve/pseuds/kyanve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Simon Arc.  Chrome decides to confront one fear; after all, being half of the Mist Guardian means having to deal with the Ring, and the Will residing in it...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond These Castle Walls

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is working under the assumption that Spade's defeat didn't completely destroy him. There's more than one different character that is aware of, or comments on, the mechanics of the rings, and Reborn's not always the most reliable narrator of the bunch; going by the ones that would be the most reliable - Talbot, Uni, Spade himself, and Kawahira to a lesser extent - there's actually more evidence pointing towards the "Will of the Rings" being the actual spirits of the First Gen, with Spade's activity having chalked up to him being a cheating bastard and using possession techniques so he wasn't actually confined to the ring. 
> 
> This doesn't necessarily mean Spade's going to be worth jack or shit for a good long time, in terms of Flame-energy or psychological stability.

It started as a tugging; something dragging him out of the blank mostly-unconsciousness he'd fallen into. For all his theatrics, death was impossible; he would exist as long as the Rings existed, whatever form they took, but it didn't mean he had to be conscious for most of it. All he really needed to do was stir long enough to deal with accepting or rejecting successors, and that was about all he planned to do, even if it meant occasions of weathering his successor's nightmares and stronger emotions bleeding back through his own.

It had to be one of the two Mist Guardians - they would be the only ones capable of even reaching where he was within the ring, much less knowing how to try to draw him out. At first he tried to stay put, pulling away from the tugging - _leave me be_ \- but it continued, more insistent. He didn't feel up to existing, even, but felt even less up to a struggle, so he finally gave up and went along with it limply.

He hadn't really been expecting much of anything, so the wind - just strong enough to push someone unwary off-balance - caught him off guard enough to stumble, catching himself against stone behind him - battlements. A glance back to check that what he was leaning on was solid found the edge of some kind of tall castle-tower, clouds visible a decent distance below, obscuring any view of the ground or what was below. As surreal as it was, it was clearly a practiced and solid illusion; maybe not something that could be pulled up in the waking world, but for something like this, it would've taken effort and more energy than he had to influence it. The battlement edge was solid enough; as tired as he still felt, he didn't bother trying to fight the wind, instead sinking to sit with his back to the stone.

The battlement was on the lowest of three staggered balconies around a spire; Chrome was at the battlement of the next balcony up, both hands on the trident, and doing her level best to try and loom at the edge. She was clearly aiming for "in control" and ready to move, even maybe intimidation, but her grip on the trident was a little too tight, her posture a little too still. She was afraid, and trying not to show it. 

It was a surprise, although one where her logic and motives were easy to guess. He knew he'd become a part of the occasional nightmare, and that he'd rattled her badly; she was trying to shake the fear by confronting it. He had to grant her credit for managing that so soon after the entire kidnapping affair; he'd reserve being impressed for when he'd gotten a good sign of whether moving so soon was her intending to catch him while he was still too weakened to be a threat, or just fear pushing her to move before she was ready. 

He gave a dry, weak smile, half-closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the stone. "Theatrics don't suit you; leave the intimidation to your partner." 

There was a slight change in her posture - a barely visible shifting of weight, pulling the trident in closer a couple hairs, and the wind picked up over his head. 

"Even if I wanted to take back up the fight, I wouldn't have the energy right now to start it - I think I'd barely be able to stand without that wind." 

"Would you?" It started out quiet, barely audible; a frown flickered across her face. "Would you - attack us again?" She was watching carefully - caution starting to overtake the uncertainty.

"Perhaps. It depends." There was a weak, slight shrug of his shoulders, and a moment where her posture with the trident tensed for a half-second. "If Tsuna does something brilliant like decide it's a good idea to destroy the rings or otherwise sets things up to collapse." He tilted his head; as much as she wasn't giving a clear reaction to it, she'd settled guarded and a little too still - going over it, thinking. "Thanks to the Vendice, you already know my reasoning, what's important to me, and that half of what I'd been acting on was proven false; you proved yourselves by handling everything I could throw at you, and I've conceded the Vongola to your generation - take care of it and I have no reason for conflict." As focused as she was, she was studying him - not bothering to hide it, either; an attempt at reversal.

Unfortunately, she wasn't managing to completely hide being unsure, which made how solid the construct was all the more impressive; it filled in one blank neatly. "Is this where you went to...". It was a rhetorical question, with faint, detached amusement; no wonder it'd been so easy to take control - she'd dropped it herself, falling back internally to a protected bolt-hole. 

She did shift, a little back from the battlement, but dropping the trident with the blades between her and the edge overlooking the balcony he was on; still learning to completely cover reactions, especially when unsettled - this was a safe space, her territory, and as much as it gave her the advantage now....

As long as he had a weak point on her confidence and was here, he could've taken control and pressed it.

"It's very solid; you very rarely see a dreamscape this strong.". He gestured weakly at the wall.

Chrome frowned, relaxing her grip on the trident with a small headshake. "It's nothing.". Detached - she'd realized she'd given him an opening, even if he hadn't taken it, and was moving to cover it.

"You really should play more to your strengths.". It was a puzzle - she wasn't an Estraneo survivor, Mukuro had found her after the Vendice had taken him, she wasn't from any underworld group that Spade had been able to trace - the one case he'd found hospital records for with injuries like hers about the right time and place would've had no prior experience with anything, yet something like this took years of practice for a skilled illusionist - if Mukuro had found her by stumbling into it, then it was no wonder the boy had taken an interest... But it said other things about her history - dream constructs this strong were rare because their use was limited; retreating into it and shutting the mental door was a smoothly practiced move for her, predating Mukuro and any real psychic threat - which left hiding from other, more mundane psychological injury. 

He was getting glared at; considering this, it was less a wonder how uncertain she was, and more a wonder that she'd started to pull together, which would've required Mukuro acting as a stabilizing influence rather than trying to weaken her; with the access the boy had he could've easily shattered her into a complete puppet - in fact, it would've been easier to push the existing fractures and do so, instead of taking the time and effort to shore up the damage and encourage stability.

Worth nothing to him but a tool, indeed.

"What do you want?" The question jarred him out of his train of thought; she'd recovered composure, still a little unsteady but more solid than she'd been when it had started - her tone was even, and she earned a slight raised eyebrow from him.

"For the Vongola to stay strong enough to survive." 

There was a pause, and a brief expression that he was fairly familiar with, if one where it being knowingly directed at him was rare - the kind of mildly annoyed look of someone that knew they'd gotten a packaged answer. It lasted a couple beats - her thinking. "Then … what do you have planned?"

Looking for a way around it, to pin him down. He gave a small snort, closing his eyes to settle in place; it wasn't like there was anything she could do to him for him to even act like he was in any risk. "Nothing, for now." There was silence and an almost tangible lack of trusting that answer. "Well, I'd say I've done quite enough damage for the time being, haven't I?" 

More silence at the moment of sarcasm; then there was the sound of movement - scuffing against stone, and a soft thump somewhere in front of him; he opened his eyes to find that she'd jumped down from the higher perch to the balcony he was on, and was walking over to within about five feet - not within easy reach without getting up to move, but still relatively close - where she settled, kneeling in an almost-perch, the trident resting across her legs, facing him. 

Whatever conclusion she'd reached from what he'd said, it apparently included him not being a threat and not even being that frightening right now; she'd shifted to just watching him with a faint frown. He could hardly call her trying to figure him out unexpected; for now he was running out of energy to care, and closed his eyes again, going for as close to semi-conscious as he could do when someone was holding him in a construct, resting until she decided to either let him go back to "sleep" or had something else to say.

When she did speak again, it was quiet, only barely audible. "Is this what she would've wanted?"

He suddenly felt a whole lot colder and a whole lot less comfortable being there, and shifted to be sitting up a little more against the stone.

"You wanted to keep her memory… you were hurt, and afraid of losing what had been important to her… and angry but didn't want to admit it." She was thinking out loud; there was the faint framework of things she'd learned watching Mukuro, but it wasn't her mimicking his habits - the tone was entirely different different, cautiously sympathetic instead of coldly predatory, and somehow more threatening for it. "And then when you thought Giotto had let you get away with things, it looked like he'd given up and was - fake, not fighting for things anymore, so it made everything worse… but you still weren't admitting that it wasn't just trying to hold things together." She didn't seem entirely focused - like she was looking at him but centered less on him right now than something past him; a child tracing out a lesson for a double-check, and it was actually getting disconcerting. "You were afraid that showing kindness would get taken advantage of, like the ambush, and thinking you'd succeeded just made you more afraid and more angry…" The frown grew more visible. "Had you thought about Elena and how you started since then?" It sounded like a perfectly innocent question, without any real inflection of anything, and yet he could see how loaded it was; he glanced away, not answering. What he caught from the corner of his eye was - the faint frown again, almost disappointed, but nothing hostile. "Is this going to make any of it better?"

"What, do you want me to make formal apologies?" At the snap she went from perch-kneeling to one hand on the ground, the trident balancing ready in the other hand. "Anything I do isn't going to undo any of the damage, and I've _always_ been better at playing the shadow - do you want me involved again? I'm sure I could give you and the others a few more good _challenges_ until you get used to people trying to kill you." He stood up, one hand on the battlement behind him; as much as he wasn't feeling up to anything, he wasn't going to stay still for that.

There was a half-beat, and then the edge of the tension went off her posture, and the first answer was a blankly unamused look; she rose standing, holding the trident close to herself, but not backing away. "You've known what she wanted all along." There was a faint hint of reproach, but far less than there should've been; again, more vague disappointment than hostility, more reminder than admonishment, and there was a whole list of other things attached to the statement that were being left as "understood". 

"Are we done here? I'll leave you and yours alone, you have my word." There was a snarl to it, raised hackles, and yet this time there wasn't any flinch, just a small sigh; she dropped her eyes, shaking her head, and the entire dreamscape popped, leaving him back in the back corner of the "ring".


End file.
